A Sorry State of the Union



Our current Asterisk-in-Chief likes to justify his paucity of accomplishments by blaming the fact that he can’t work with a Republican controlled House and Senate.  This, of course, totally ignores his first two years when he had a solid majority of Democrats in both Houses of Congress and couldn’t even get a budget passed.  He did get his signature Obamacare bulldozed through however, which is why he didn’t have those Democrat majorities thereafter.  But my opinion is no better than anyone else.   History is something a little more definitive.  So, I went to my computer and looked up all the other Presidents who had to deal with a House and Senate that was controlled by the opposition. 
     There have been four Democrat Presidents and six Republican Presidents who faced a Congress of the opposite party. 
     Wilson managed to pass the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote.
     Harry Truman got the Housing Act of 1949 passed and integrated the armed services.
     Dwight D. Eisenhower worked with both sides of the aisle to create the National Interstate Highway system and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
     Richard Nixon passed the Clean Air Act, but his accomplishments as President are almost totally overshadowed by his callous disregard for the law and paranoid delusions of grandeur and martyrdom.  He got little done because he was too busy trying to preserve the image he thought he deserved.  Nixon’s Presidency is a mirror image of Obama’s.
     Gerald Ford had a much more intractable Congress than Obama.  His Democrat controlled legislature smelled blood in the water after Ford’s pardon of Nixon and would not even talk to him. Ford did veto 66 bills that he could not square with his political conscience.
     Ronald Reagan (like Eisenhower) passed so much domestic and foreign legislation that it is hard to remember that both faced a Democrat controlled House and Senate.  Reagan worked with them to reduce taxes and conduct an aggressive foreign affairs policy that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union by outspending them as well as the destruction of the Berlin Wall and reunification of Germany.  He also appointed the first woman to the Supreme Court (Justice Sandra Day O’Conner).
     George H. W. Bush passed the Americans with Disabilities Act and Clean Air Act Amendments.
     Bill Clinton pushed through many pieces of domestic legislation including the Family Medical Leave Act and the Violence Against Women Act. 
     George W. Bush was able to get the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan passed, the No Child Left Behind Act and allocated billions of dollars to fight HIV/AIDS around the world. 
     That brings us to Obama.  Since World War I we have had only 12 years during which Democrats had to deal with Republican legislatures but 21 years when Republicans faced a Democrat controlled Congress.  Most presidents have found a way to work with the opposition.  Success is reached when Presidents and Congressmen have the humility to realize that truth does not come from God’s mouth to their ears.  Success comes from having everyone owning some stake in the outcome.  The word for that is “compromise.” 
     The Little Prince has not run into a wall of unyielding Republicans.  He has stumbled over his own pendulous ego.  I honestly do not think he wants to share credit.  It is a mark in insecurity and it is deadly in someone who chooses public service.  Never have I seen someone offer the public such hope for conciliation and then treat their hope with such feckless cynicism. 
     Hope for better and keep the faith.

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